Cinderella II is actually comprised of three different tales. At the very beginning, the mice decide that the fact that there is only one story of Cinderella is just not a good thing. They decide that they should write some new stories for her. They have plenty of new tales just waiting to be told since they've all moved to the castle! With the aid of Fairy Godmother and a little bit of magic, they set to work.
The first tale they tell is about Cinderella's first day in the castle. She has to learn the "proper" way to be a princess and plan a royal party. The problem is that acting like a princess is the opposite of who she is. Does she choose to conform or will she make the castle her own? The one thing you will definitely learn from this tale - prunes are yucky!
The second story for our entertainment is, to quote my sister, "more of a mice-mice story than a Cinderella story." Poor Jaq feels like he just can't be any help to Cinderella when he's only 1 inch tall. With the aid of Fairy Godmother, he makes a VERY radical change hoping he will be able to give Cinderella more help. Things don't always go as planned though and Jaq learns a valuable lesson about being youself.
The third tale was my favorite of the three. In it, one of Cinderella's evil step sisters falls in love. Now, of course, her mother does not approve of her choice. Cinderella has to help her sister learn to be a little nicer and convince her she can get the man. She also has to try and teach her to stand up to her mother, which is probably the hardest chore of all!
One thing that I really enjoyed about Cinderella II is that the animation style is the same as the original. Instead of using CG, it appears hand drawn like all the classic Disney movies. I really miss that classic feel in a lot of the new Disney shows.
The DVD also include several special features. There are two games you can play, but honestly they're really not that much fun. I guess I'm just used to console games, but trying to play a game with the DVD remote just isn't the most natural thing to do. There's also a DVD storybook for you to have another tale to hear. You can choose to read it yourself or have your Fairy Godmother read it to you. It is very interesting to say the least. I don't think my sister and I quite got the same story from it that children would. There's also the Musical Magic Featurette where the composer describes in very kid-friendly terms how the movie music was created. Finally, there's a music video for "Put It Together" performed by Brooke Allison using clips from the Cinderella II movie.
As a whole, Cinderella II was an okay sequel. I found parts of it to be boring, but not enough to stop watching it. It's not an instant classic like the first one was, but it will entertain you.
